Good News About Housing Recovery… Your Kids Will be Living With You for a Long Time 2-22-2014
Recently released surveys from both Gallup and Pew Research Center showed that as many as 36 percent of Americans 18 to 31 years old are still living with their parents… the highest level ever recorded. And Time Magazine says we’ve got 25 million adults kids still living with mom and dad... You’ve heard about the housing recovery, right? How could you not? On any given day these days, you can find the good news about housing markets in this country all over the media… prices are recovering, or so the story goes. The only problem with the “news” is that as of January 30th of this year, sales of existing U.S. homes plunged to the worst pace in 18 months. Read More at Mandelman Matters
Homeowner Alert: Scammer Masquerades as Bank, Offers Fake Loan Mods 2-22-2014
As if REAL loan modifications weren’t often illusory enough, now there are scammers masquerading as banks, offering FAKE LOAN MODIFICATIONS… and if that weren’t bad enough, the fake mods require homeowners to pay thousands of dollars for nothing. This past week, Illinois consumer attorney Rick Rogers reported that a homeowner in the Chicago area, a school teacher who had been trying for a couple years to get her loan modified had not been approved… and her home was going into foreclosure. She kept trying though until one day this past fall she received a letter that appeared to say that Bank of America was now approving her loan modification. Read More at Mandelman Matters
Uncertainty in the Loan Mod Process is Barrier to U.S. Economic Growth 2-21-2014
"...why doesn't anyone talk about the monument to uncertainty that's been placed square on the collective chest of the American homeowner... the loan modification process? It's the proverbial life preserver for the underwater homeowner at risk of losing a home to foreclosure that sinks more often than it floats... and often times no one knows why. And it's the poster-child for uncertainty.'' Read More at Mandelman Matters
Fannie Mae profits push taxpayers into black on housing bailout 2-21-2014
Fannie Mae said on Friday it would soon send the U.S. Treasury a dividend of $7.2 billion that will make taxpayers whole for the 2008 bailout of the mortgage-financing giant and its sibling company Freddie Mac... To avoid having to ever rescue them again, the Obama administration and lawmakers on Capitol Hill have vowed to revamp the housing finance system and do away with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as they are currently constituted. The Senate is working on a bipartisan bill that would ensure there will be a government backstop for the market in times of crisis, an approach favored by the White House. A Republican-backed bill in the U.S. House of Representatives would limit federal mortgage guarantees more sharply. Read More at REUTERS
Loan Complaints by Homeowners Rise Once More 2-18-2014
Shoddy paperwork, erroneous fees and wrongful evictions -- the same abuses that dogged the nation's largest banks and led to a $26 billion settlement with federal authorities in 2012 -- are now cropping up among the specialty firms that collect mortgage payments, according to dozens of foreclosure lawsuits and interviews with borrowers, federal and state regulators and housing lawyers. These companies are known as servicers, but they do far more than transfer payments from borrowers to lenders. They have great power in deciding whether homeowners can win a mortgage modification or must hand over their home in a foreclosure. Read More at NYTimes
Foreclosures Suddenly Jump 57% in California (And Soar In Much Of The Country) 2-14-2014
From Federal-Reserve-fueled bubble to debilitating return to reality – reality being a financial calamity – to Federal-Reserve-hyper-fueled bubble: that’s the US housing market over the last ten years. There are many places around the country, including some cities in Silicon Valley, where home values are now higher than they were at the peak of the last bubble. Of course, no one at the Fed or in government calls it “bubble.” They’re talking about the housing “recovery.” Foreclosure filings – default notices, scheduled auctions, and bank repossessions – suddenly jumped 8% to 124,419 in January across the nation, according to RealtyTrac. Read More at Business Insider
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